This new strategy also seeks to bring conversations to mobile customer service applications by intelligently linking contact center agents and customer care resources from across the enterprise, including those in the back office and branch locations.

The new strategy will add capabilities to many Genesys applications, including its G8 suite, complete with Conversation Manager, which will bring agent conversations to iPhones, Integrated Mobile Customer Care Apps, and UC Connect, linking mobile customers to back-office and mobile experts. The new capabilities will include the following:

"Today's consumers rely on their smartphones and tablets to be their windows to the world. Businesses need to be creative in offering apps that integrate into all areas of the enterprise, from sales and marketing to customer care," said Tom Burns, president of Alcatel-Lucent's Enterprise Business unit, in a statement. "Our mobile solutions featured in the G8 suite are bringing our core cross-channel routing and application openness together with the power of our Genesys Conversation Manager to provide the context and presence information needed to deliver the next-generation mobile experience."

Alcatel-Lucent expects to incorporate these elements into many of the Genesys products later this year, according to Mayur Anadkat, product marketing manager for Alcatel-Lucent's Enterprise/Genesys division.

The strategy takes advantage of the growing popularity of mobile devices, which Anadkat says "are more powerful than any one channel alone and can be used for so much more today."

Yet despite the popularity of mobile devices—smartphones in particular—many applications for the mobile space today are strictly "transactional," offering users the same services they could do on the company's Web site, he adds.

The new apps "will evolve into something conversational. They will allow the back-and-forth that’s missing today," Anadkat says.

They will also provide greater personalization, he adds, but the real benefit will be the connection to the right resource at the right time. He also sees possibilities to incorporate the strategy and corresponding capabilities to outbound applications. "There is a natural progression into push notifications," he says.